Rachel and her guys clear out, taking the dog with them. I give Ryan his space once I see that he’s set up in the guest room, his leg balanced on top of a pillow, a bag of ice perched atop his knee. He’s playing some kind of game on his phone that makes loud go-kart racing sounds.
It’s odd, but just knowing Ryan’s here is bringing me comfort. I’m going to log this away under the label ‘Gemini Problems.’ It’s the extrovert in me. I don’t like being alone. I spent so much of my young life alone by nature of my circumstances—abandoned by my mother, ignored by my relatives, too poor to join the cool after school clubs, and too embarrassed to invite friends over when I didn’t know whose couch I’d be crashing on from week to week.
I think that’s why losing Rachel has been so hard for me. I try not to say anything because I know how happy she is now, but going from having her in my life every day to staring at the void of her empty room has been awful. She told me to rent it out, but I just couldn’t bear to think of someone else sharing my space.
What can I say? I’m an extroverted introvert with truly impressive trust and abandonment issues. But man, do I know how to pick a quality cheese.
Now Ryan is here, and it’s unsettling me that I don’t mind. What is it about this hockey boy that I keep letting him in? I let him flirt with me, let him kiss me. Now he flashes me one glance of those hurt puppy eyes, and I let him move in across the hall.
I lean over in my kitchen chair and glance down the dark hallway. A soft strip of golden light glows at the bottom of his bedroom door. It’s been a couple hours since he got here. Checking the time, I’m shocked to see its nearly midnight.
What is he doing in there? Shouldn’t he be asleep by now? He was dead on his feet hours ago. And I heard Rach walking him through his pain management routine before she left. He’s got enough pills on his bedside table to drop an elephant.
He’s probably asleep, too tired to turn out the light.
He’s a grown man, Tess. Leave him alone.
Righting myself in my chair, I turn my attention back to my glass of wine and my show. Ryan Langley is not my problem. He’s the solution to my problem…he just doesn’t know it yet.
To my credit, I last about fifteen minutes. That’s ten minutes longer than I would normally last, thank you very much. I finish my episode of Bridgerton, and then I’m up out of my chair, snapping my laptop shut.
Ignoring the bossy voice in my head telling me to leave him alone, I inch down the dark hallway. His door is cracked open. I take a step closer and peek in.
Ryan is shirtless, sitting up in bed. Holy mama, I forgot how ripped he is. His boyish blond hair is mussed. It’s the hair that ages him so young. He’s in his early twenties, but his college frat boy hair gives him a look like he isn’t old enough to order a shot of Jäegermeister.
I shift my weight, and the floor creaks loud enough to wake the dead. I duck back, but it’s too late. He glances up sharply, his eyes locking on mine.
“Tess?” he calls out.
I wait a beat and then push open his door. “Hey,” I call, keeping my voice soft. “Just checking on you. I figured you fell asleep with your light on. I was gonna turn it off,” I say, gesturing at the lamp in the corner.
“You can turn it off if you want,” he replies.
I step into the room, leaving the comfort of the dark hallway. “Why are you still awake?”
“Can’t sleep,” he replies.
“Aren’t the pain meds supposed to help with that?”
He shrugs. “I’m not taking them.”
I drop my hand away from the lamp. “Why aren’t you taking your meds? You’ve gotta be in pain, right?”
“I don’t like the way they make me feel. The pain’s not so bad compared to the stomach cramps from the meds.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Am I gonna have to tell Rachel that you’re being noncompliant with her rehab routine?”
“I am being compliant,” he replies, gesturing to his knee. “Look. This is me being fucking compliant, and I’m fucking miserable about it, okay?”
“Are you uncomfortable? Do you need another pillow?”
“Of course I’m uncomfortable,” he huffs. “I can’t fucking sleep like this. It’s been two fucking days.”
“You can’t sleep with the brace on? Does it hurt or—”
“I can’t sleep on my back,” he corrects. “I can’t—I don’t ever sleep on my back. But all the docs say I have to keep my leg like this to protect my MCL from any pressure or twisting. So, I can’t fucking sleep.”
He looks so perfectly miserable. I don’t even realize that I’m crossing the room towards him. “Oh, Ryan,” I say with a sigh, reaching out to brush his messy hair back from his brow. “What are we gonna do with you?”
“Put me out of my misery.”
I smirk. “I don’t think things are quite that dire.”
“I’m going out of my fucking mind,” he admits, a slight catch in his voice. The poor man is past the point of exhaustion.
Alright, it’s time for someone to take charge of this situation. Geminis love a good problem to fix. “Well, okay,” I say, hands on my hips as I glance around the room. “I don’t think it’s a matter of you not being able to sleep on your back. I think we just have to set you up for success.”
“Tess…”
“Step one, turn off the video games,” I say, plucking his phone off his lap.
“Hey—”
“Studies show that phone use before bed disrupts your sleep cycle.”
He crosses his arms over his bare chest and glares at me. “Oh, yeah? Name one.”
I turn away from him, searching the bedside table for his phone charger. “Johnson and Bernstein 2002. It was a sleep study done up at Mayo. Groundbreaking stuff.” I turn off his game and plug the phone in.
“You totally just made that up.”
“Of course I did. I’m a corporate mergers and acquisitions lawyer, Ryan. Not a sleep specialist.”
“So, you admit you have no qualifications to help me fall asleep,” he presses, a glint in his eye. He’s liking this. Truth be told, I am too.
“Sit up,” I reply. “We’re gonna get you horizontal.”
He laughs. “And now to distract me from your lack of qualifications, you’re trying to use your feminine wiles to get me horizontal. Are you gonna have your way with me, Tess?”
I jerk the pillow out from behind his head.
“Ouch—shit—” He catches himself before he falls back and hits the headboard.
“Sweet puppy, you listen to me now,” I tease. “If you think you have what it takes to ride this rollercoaster, you are sorely mistaken. In your current state, you wouldn’t make it up the first hill. There will be no having my way with you tonight. There will only be sleep.”
Now he’s smiling. “Not tonight…but tomorrow is another day. And I’m game if you are.”
“You have to live to see tomorrow,” I counter. “And at this rate, you’re about to fall dead from exhaustion. Now shimmy down a bit and lie down.” I help him situate, fixing the pillow under his knee as we get him into a much more relaxed incline. “How do you sleep on all those planes?” I ask, unfolding the throw blanket and laying it over him.
“I curl up on my side,” he replies, his biceps flexing as he pokes and prods the pillow into shape under his head. “I sleep best on my stomach, though. So usually, I just don’t sleep. I play video games and listen to audiobooks and stuff.”
Stepping over to the corner, I click off the lamp. “Better?” I say into the dark.
He’s quiet for a minute. “Yeah,” comes his soft voice.
“Think you can sleep now?”
“I—yeah,” he says quickly.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. It’s dumb. I’ll try to sleep.”
“Come on, Ryan,” I tease. “You’ve seen me naked twice now. I have no secrets from you. Don’t keep secrets from me.”
He shifts on the bed. “I, uhh…your voice is soothing,” he admits. “Could you maybe stay a bit longer and…maybe talk to me a little?”
I can’t help but smile. He’s just so damn sweet. “There’s no chair in here,” I reply. “And Tess Owens doesn’t sit on hardwood floors. Let me go get a chair from the kitchen—”
“That’s dumb. Just sit on the bed,” he replies, pushing up on his elbows to try and look at me through the dark.
“You’re on the bed.”
“It’s a queen-sized bed, Tess. There’s room for both of us. What if I promise to keep my hands to myself?”
“Do I have to promise the same?”
I don’t even know what made me say it. The banter just pops out around him. The same thing happened at the wedding. It’s like each time we meet, he gets more comfortable in his own skin, more comfortable with me too. The fumbling boy I met on the beach is gone, and in his place is this flirty man who asks for what he wants. I like it. I like the idea that he’s different once you get to know him.
He lets out a strangled sound from the bed, flopping back onto the pillow. “No,” comes his soft reply.
Poor hockey boy is in agony, wanting something he can’t have.
And that something is me.
Stupid butterflies flutter in my chest. I stomp those bitches down hard and fast. “Okay, Ryan. Here’s the deal. I will sit on this bed with you for exactly fifteen minutes, and I will talk at you, and you will not respond. You are to be trying to fall asleep, understood?”
“Yeah, that’s totally cool,” he says, unable to hide the eagerness from his tone.
“Don’t get too excited. I’m gonna walk you through my hair routine in excruciating detail. We’re talking hair masks, keratin sprays, detanglers, leave-in curl products. And I will not touch your dick or any part of you remotely close to your dick,” I add, my tone firm. “So let go of that fantasy right now.”
“Got it. Yeah, I won’t say a thing. And no dick touching.”
I step around the other side of the bed and crawl onto it, careful not to jostle him too much as I lie down. I curl on my side facing towards him and he turns his head too, looking at me.
“Let’s start with my weekly routines,” I say, keeping my voice soft. “So, once a week, I deep condition my curls with a moisturizing hair mask. And I treat my scalp to a coconut oil massage, which helps promote good blood flow and strong hair follicles.”
“Hmm,” he says, his head turning away as he closes his eyes. “That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“The scent that’s been haunting me since beach day,” he replies, his words slurred by fatigue. “In my mind I was calling it piña colada. It’s coconut. My coconutty dream girl.”
My heart stops, and the butterflies all take a knee. Dream girl? I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. He just breathes in and out, his body relaxing into the bed.
I lean closer to him. “You realize you lasted exactly seven seconds after swearing to a vow of silence, right? I have no choice but to leave. We can’t have you thinking actions don’t have consequences—”
“Stay,” he says, reaching out to grab my hand. He laces our fingers together, pulling my arm across his stomach. “You were talking about scalp massages.”
“Mhmm,” I reply, swallowing down the emotion in my throat.
“I’ve never had a scalp massage.”
“Give me my hand back,” I whisper.
His fingers tighten around mine. “No. You’ll leave.”
I smile. “I won’t leave. Give it back, and I’ll pet your head.”
He lets go of my hand, and I brush it up his bare chest, letting the tips of my fingers graze his warm skin. Using a gentle touch, I stroke my fingers over his soft hair. I scrape lightly along his scalp with my nails.
He groans, following my touch. “Keep talking. Hair mask.”
I curl my other arm under my head, continuing to pet him as I talk him through my hair mask routine. He doesn’t last five minutes before he’s crashed out asleep.
